One of the friends I have made in the data center industry is David Schirmacher who is the new President of 7x24 Exchange. I had heard about 7x24 Exchange, but was busy attending Uptime, DataCenterDynamics, Gartner, and AFCOM in 2011. David convinced another top DC executive and myself to give 7x24 a try. We did and we’ve been going twice a year since.

Why is 7x24 different? Because, it puts the users needs first, and given it is a non-profit the organization is more transparent then the rest. How transparent? Here is the attendance for the last 10 years. What other organization shares their attendance? 7x24 hit 819 attendees this event.

I’ve written about 7x24 Exchange each time, and when the number 819 was up there it felt good to know I’ve helped get more people to attend. One of the groups I’ve reached out to his the high tech crowd who would tend to go to SF/SJ events. Here are some of the tech companies who attend - Apple, Dell, EMC, Facebook, Google, Intel, HP, Microsoft, Oracle.

I’ve already made plans on how my schedule will align in 2015 as I figure I’ll keep on this roll and be attending twice a year in the future like I have in the past.